A £12 million investment will be made by one of the UK & Ireland's leading construction manufacturers, Tobermore, to expand its operations.

Kick-starting the expansion, the L'Derry-based company will invest £4 million in new jobs, including the creation of a dedicated technical design team to support its commercial customers.

This will be followed by the construction of a new £8 million state-of-the-art production facility at its manufacturing site in Magherafelt.

The new 3,000m2 factory will be able to produce over 1,000,000m2 paving blocks a year, increasing the company's block paving production by 25%.

The facility will be equipped with industry leading manufacturing equipment that will deliver high quality paving products at speed.

"Our customers are facing an incredible challenge to build more homes and commercial projects including public realm, healthcare, and to do this quickly to very high standards," explained Kathryn Robinson, Head of Sales at Tobermore.

"This investment demonstrates our commitment to supporting our customers. Increasing our production capacity means we will be able to not just meet but exceed anticipated demand, so they can keep on building."

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Meanwhile, over the next few months, the company will be recruiting 34 people. At HQ, its design team will be expanded to provide a complete design, project and technical support service for architects, engineers, and groundworkers as well as housebuilders and local authorities working within private and public sectors.

It will also be recruiting 11 new specification managers and 10 new roles within the commercial / Business-to-Business team, including two national housebuilder managers, four strategic account managers and four retaining wall team members.

"It's an exciting time to be joining Tobermore. We have ambitious growth plans and are making a significant investment to make them happen," said Kathryn.

As well as recruiting new staff, the company has made 11 internal promotions.

"We value our people and always look to reward their hard work and dedication by promoting internally," added Laura McGlade, Head of People at Tobermore.

"We do everything we can to equip our teams with the right resources, expertise, skills, and training to empower them to progress and develop their careers with us."

Tobermore responded to the sharp increase in customer demand with a production capacity increase. This was achieved by the introduction of additional night shifts in its manufacturing facilities.

This is just the latest investment in a series of expansion projects by Tobermore to support its ambitious growth plans. The company opened its £10 million production facility in 2020, expanding block paving production capacity, and its £8.6 million manufacturing unit in 2022 to increase production of paving slabs.

These two investments have enabled the company to scale up overall block paving production by approximately 25% and slab production by approximately 40% compared to this time 5 years ago.